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To: Gregg Powers who wrote (20696)1/3/1999 11:15:00 AM
From: gdichaz  Respond to of 152472
 
To Gregg: Curious. Do you have an educated guess (assume any guess you make surrounding the Q is educated :-) ) on what AT&T might do and when re TDMA (and upgrading analog)? Waiting for 3rd gen? Chaz



To: Gregg Powers who wrote (20696)1/3/1999 4:18:00 PM
From: Joe NYC  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 152472
 
Greg,

I don't know where the $0.002 and $0.006 cost per minute came from, but according to Airtouch their fully-loaded cost per minute is around $0.06, i.e. six cents per minute and management believe that T's is much higher. Many elements factor into the fully loaded cost per minute such as corporate overhead and marketing strategies...

Are you sure it is fully-loaded cost, not present cost? Fully loaded cost has to be an assumption, because I am sure they are not fully loaded. Also, it would be interesting to know the breakdown between operational overhead (corporate overhead, marketing, billing) and physical cost of providing a minute of phone service.

Both TDMA and CDMA operators have about the same overhead, so the difference in cost between TDMA and CDMA may be a lot smaller than we think.

Another cost that we have been ignoring is the cost to terminate the call. Suppose I use my Sprint phone to call your land line. Sprint has to pay money to your local phone operator. Does anybody know what this cost is? I believe it is something in range of 3 cents per minute. Am I close?

It has to be substantial, because the operators are willing to provide mobile to mobile service for very little money.

Joe